Teabaggers held a protest at Rep. Perriello’s office.
A bunch of angry, unhinged teabaggers protested at Rep. Tom Perriello’s office yesterday, calling him a “traitor,” “coward,” “prostitute,” and accusing him of “treason.” They believe that global climate change doesn’t exist. (Not that it’s not man-made, but that it doesn’t exist.) Politically, this is an awfully foolish approach—one never sways much popular opinion by making such nasty claims about an officeholder—but this group has never shown itself to be particularly astute. This group seems to consist entirely of Joe the Plumber Mini-Mes.
They’re upset because Perriello cast an incredibly ballsy vote the other day, voting for the cap-and-trade bill. It creates an open market to sell the right to pollute (the sort of thing free market types should love). Perriello knew that the vote would be both good for our district and unpopular with voters, acknowledging to the Post beforehand that it would be trouble. But the man ran for office promising that he’d create jobs and support environmental legislation, and this bill does both. The CBO says that this bill will cost the average household $175 annually come 2020, but that’s ignoring any energy savings. Since energy savings are the whole point of this bill, it’s a fair bet that number is going to wind up a lot smaller.
The NRCC immediately released an ad attacking Perriello, to have it aired on 5th district TV stations. But FactCheck.org called bullshit on it, leading WDBJ-7 to refuse to air the ad. They’re not saying whether or not it’s because FactCheck.org says it’s fake, but I recall WDBJ-7 refusing to run a political ad for that very reason a year or so ago, so that’s a fair guess.
Anyhow, this bunch was angry that Perriello wasn’t available to talk with them at the time of their protest, by why should he have bothered? What’s the point of talking with people who have already prepared signs declaring you to be everything but the antichrist? If this bunch had been genuine in their involvement—if they wanted to influence this process, rather than try to score political points—they would have met with him prior to the vote and presented a rational argument against the bill. Instead they showed up for a big “fuck you.”
I forget, are the Tea Party people still pretending that they’re nonpartisan? Or have they dropped that schtick? The important thing is that they’re the future of the Republican Party. God love ‘em for that.
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